[M] The Prophet In Silver - IC

[Thrannix]

(One of our pending copost scenes with Paint, should be before the ambush.)


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“I have found Abdur Salah, as in found him in the ruins, as in he is…is…oh, my.” Gavin’s voice, as distant as his projection, faltered as the psyker recoiled back in his chair with a grimace. “He is in terrible, terrible pain, and has been severely traumatized.”

“Where’s Abdur been hit and is he in mobile condition?” Sapphira asked as she checked her shotgun. By contrast Crenshaw only fractionally narrowed his eyes at Gavin as he listened.

“With the words I have said, Sister Sapphira, what I mean is he has been traumatized. In here, as in his mind…” Gavin tentatively answered and gestured to his scarred temples, not quite touching them. “It is turbulent as Abdur Salah has been wounded for…there were so many…”

Solvan felt his chest tighten as he remembered the Tallarn’s confession back at Akkan. He desperately wished to be able to talk to Abdur, but his vox was turned off. The knowledge that there was nothing he could do was maddening.

“He suffers greatly as he begs…for forgiveness…because it was…not his fault…No!” Gavin quickly blurted out as his eyes snapped back open in horrified shock.

The shot was a sharp bang that ricocheted through the ruins back to the team in the warehouse, before being swallowed by the distant thunder of gunfire that continued to echo through the war-torn city.

“This is Kally. Abdur is KIA. Repeat, Abdur is KIA. We're cleaning up and will report back in fifteen minutes.”

Solvan feared the answer, but nonetheless he made the question.

"How did he die?" The words felt distant somehow, as if spoken by someone else.

The silence that came afterwards only increased his worry.

"Damn sand man offed himself." Came the short reply from Vincent.

Time seemed to slow, the bishop felt sick in the gut and weak at the knees. After what felt like hours he reached for the vox. The only sign of his inner turmoil was a slight trembling of his hand. He knew what had to be done with Abdur's body, and somewhere a part of his mind was grateful for the small mercy of not having to order the deed himself.

"We leave as soon as they get back." He sent into the vox. "In the meantime, I need to pray for his soul."

He made his way outside the warehouse, the perimeter had been declared safe by Gavin and in the south side across the street a wall that once belonged to a church still stood. He was dazed and almost stumbled with the abundant rubble on the ground as he made his way there. When he reached his destination he let himself fall to his knees, too tired to keep struggling to stand up. He looked up to the heavens through the silent tears that were forming in his eyes. The mix of smoke and dust made for an ugly sky, in a sense it was fitting.

“You have two minutes to recover, Jenkins. Be ready.” Crenshaw growled lowly at his trembling and hyperventilating psyker. “Kally, Crenshaw. You will have over watch in ninety. Keep your intervals.”

“I’ll keep an eye on him.” Sapphira quietly volunteered as she held up a hand to wave off anyone else. She knew it had to be her. The Sister followed after Solvan and kept an attentive eye on their surroundings as he crossed the street. It was only when the priest finally stumbled down that Sapphira followed him out. She halted a respectful distance away from the man and quietly waited.

"He came to me, he shared the scars he carried in his soul. I tried to help him, to keep him away from the darkness." A mix of rage and despair coated the priest's words and Sapphira frowned deeply to hear him so wounded. "But I failed him, I failed at my sacred duty as confessor. And now he is dead. His soul is on my head."

“This isn’t your fault, Solvan.” Sapphira softly assured him. “You did everything within your capacity to help Abdur. You didn’t fail him and you haven’t failed as a confessor.” She took a measured step towards the priest. “None of us could’ve predicted this. How could we have?”

Not meeting the Sister’s gaze Solvan reached within his robes and took out Abdur's prayer book, its meticulous engraving glinting against the Sun.

"He gave me this. I thought it was just a gesture of friendship, but he was starting to let go. Why else give away the book with which one prays?" His voice was thin, very different from the usual strong and clear registry he used to perform his sermons or give out orders.

“Because it was a meaningful gift, Solvan, like your friendship and counsel was to him. You had no reason to suspect otherwise.” Sapphira reasoned as she closed the distance between them. “If any one of us did - you, me, or the Interrogator, then Abdur would not have been in Rakosu.”

"I should have seen it. I could have insisted in him staying with Alia, away from the warzone which would inevitably reopen his traumas." His hand gripped the book with increasing pressure, as if the bishop was trying to crumple it in his hand, the ancient leather cover began to break under his fingernails.

"I swore she would be the last one to pay for my mistakes." Solvan continued talking more to himself than anyone else, Allana’s features flashing in his mind. "But it was arrogant to make that promise, and my penitence is far from over."

He finally released the book and it fell to the ground opening into a random page. He glanced at the delicate pages filled with Tallarn scripture. Then he reached with his hand once more and flicked a couple or pages searching for something. When he seemed to found it he took a deep breath as he opened both his palms to the sky at his sides. Not leaving his knelt position he began reciting.

“Oh Emperor, forgive him and have mercy on him and give him strength and pardon him. Be generous to him and cause his entrance to be wide and wash him with water and snow and hail. Cleanse him of his transgressions as white cloth is cleansed of stains. Give him an abode better than his home, and a family better than his family. Take him and protect him from the punishment of the grave. Imperator Akbar.”

When he was finished Solvan let his arms fall down again and closed his eyes. Sapphira quietly repeated the declaration of faith and bowed her head in supplication to Him. The Sister reverently touched the eagle on her shotgun while she critically eyed their surroundings.

“It is done.” He whispered in a broken voice that made Sapphira close the distance. She crouched down next to Solvan and rested a hand reassuringly on his shoulder as she leaned in to speak softly, her words for him alone.

“You have done all that you can do for Abdur. He is in His more than capable hands now.” Sapphira gently cupped Solvan’s cheek so the priest would look up. The Sister had on an expression which was equal parts soulful compassion and intent seriousness. “However you are not done, Solvan Belannor, as we who remain here are in your hands.”

Solvan couldn't remember when was the last time that he was comforted by someone instead of the other way around. So many years as confessor had taken a heavy toll on the bishop. Adur's death had only been the last drop of poison his soul had taken in a long trail of self-torturing under the service of the Inquisition. Tears rolled down his face which Sapphira lightly brushed away as he allowed himself to tap into the pool of pain that festered within him for a brief moment.

Then the moment was gone. The Sister was right, he had to focus on his duty, his purpose. He nodded to Sapphira not daring to speak through the knot in his throat. Solvan stood up blinking away the tears, his shoulders heavier than ever. Sapphira supportively kept her hand on his arm and gently squeezed as she returned his nod.

"Thank you, Sapphira." He finally whispered to the Sororita, his voice strained by the effort to keep it steady, and the ghost of a smile on his lips. "Let's go back. Our mission is far from over."

[dakkagor]

OOC : Green provided by our redoubtable ST.

+++Tomas+++

"We'll have to get a team down a distance away and hump it on foot to the edge of their perimeter. Its a damn shame about Abdur. . .he would have been perfect for this.”

Tomas rubbed at his chin as he looked over the map.

“You probably want to set down there.” He pointed to a low valley, on the far side of a hill some distance from the base. “It looks sheltered, any defence or sensor net will not reach to it, and line of sight is blocked by the crest of the hill for any observation post nearer the stronghold. Check it first, to make sure they haven't thought the same thing, then land and approach over the hill.”

He nodded to himself, working the logic through and finding it sound. Machairi mirrored his gesture, deferring to her aide's military experience.

"I know our people are down there." the interrogator said, sweeping her eyes over the table - and over Vincent and Marc in particular. "But we need to take this slow and get it right. The xenos or VIzkop's friend Oswin might well have placed perimeter alarms. We also need to give Klimment's men time to rehearse an attack plan."

“Speaking of Klimment's men," Tomas added, "I'll check them over, get you an evaluation of their equipment and capabilities. I'd like to know what kind of scum we have covering our arses. Who knows, we might be lucky and they may have some servo skulls we can use to do some quick scouting.”

"I would rather not tip the indigens off with something as obviously Imperial as a skull drone." Machairi said, twirling the command wand between finger and thumb thoughtfully. "I think Kelly has the right idea. Gavin's our best bet for determining the internal layout without us being detected in return."

Tomas pushed away from the table, and with a nod left the conference room and headed to Klimment's barracks. He would have given anything for a company of storm troopers, or better yet, Carbon troopers. He'd have to see what quality of men Klimment was willing to lend them.

+ + + + + +

The repurposed loading bay was an assault on the senses - alert lights spinning in amber circles, piston heads slamming, and jets of steam ejecting into the air as pairs of armoured marines advanced methodically through the maze of live equipment filling the bay. Stern-faced sergeants looked down from atop cargo crates that were dotted around the bay, surveying their teams as they moved. The sergeants' polarised visors flashed in the rotating lights.

Xanthius, Klimment's dark-skinned bodyguard, was smiling his shark's smile at Tomas as the two observed from the gantry below one of the bay's vast pedestal cranes.

"So what do you think of our security detail, Mr Prinzel?" he asked over the white wall of noise. If Klimment had told him who Machairi and the others really were, he was hiding the fact. "Trader Klimment takes the threat of his ship being boarded very seriously."

“They look well equipped, and well drilled.” Tomas conceded. “But that only counts for so much. I'm eager to see them in action.” He grinned wolfishly. “Do they have any experience in hostage retrieval? As I'm sure you're aware, we have men down there and we want them back.”

“They have training in life guard duties and in VIP escort, its much the same.” Xanthius replied. “We have run through drills for it, but Klimment has never been stupid enough to get captured by Indigens.”

Tomas let the comment slide, and returned his gaze to the men below. He wasn't going to deny that getting captured was pretty stupid. Kally seemed to have a knack for it.
“I hope they live up to your sales pitch, Xanthius.”

+++Kally+++

"Speak, mortals." the dead voice whispered. "True conversation is a rare luxury for my kind."

Kally laughed, a hard, bitter laugh from a throat that was already feeling dry. She looked the...the thing in the face. “You might regret that. Ask Interrogator Schafer there, you might struggle to shut me up.” She turned to Schafer. “So when did they get you? On this shit-heap world or earlier? Or are you just a regular flavour of traitor rather than a fething replicant?” She knew she needed to play for time. Time for what, she wasn't sure. But the longer she could keep talking, the longer their reprieve from what came next might last.

"Venatora." Schafer said, without any noticeable emotion. "The original Schafer died with Clement in the shuttle crash. The Masters replicated both us and the shuttle before Black's Arvus regained contact."

“But . . .Vizkops detector? I thought it was 100% foolproof. It caught Faroven, for gaks sake!”

"Faroven didn't know about Vizkop's detector in advance." the replicant answered. "I did. I was able to briefly take control of the device when he turned it on me."

He folded his arms, frowning thoughtfully.

"So...if you're here on Hercynia, who did Sidonis send after me? And who sent you into the Uru to die?" He cracked a slightly sneering smile. "I'm going to guess Alia. She's the same manipulative bitch that Nasreen was - she just hides it better. But it won't stop her from falling one day." He glanced round at the hooded skeleton. "Not worth replicating, I assure you."

“If you wanted replicants," Kally interrupted. "You could have had us shot in the field and replaced immediately. So I'm guessing you don't need any more help infiltrating the inquisition. So what’s the plan, break us down for parts and turn us into more of you? Those...Pariah things?”

Schafer's eyes switched sharply back to Kally, although he obviously had too much of the original Schafer's training to let her turn around the conversation by asking her how she knew about Pariahs. The hooded skeleton on the other hand just bobbed its head again, the eerie, silent laugh.

"No." it whispered. "You have things almost completely backwards, mortal."

The creature turned and advanced three paces towards Kally's end of the cell, its cloak whispering, its metal feet clicking against the stone. It slowly tilted its skull, regarding Kally through the shimmering force-field. Kally resisted the urge to back away, instead meeting its empty gaze.

"But you amuse me, and so I shall enlighten you. Let it never be said that my kind do not have a sense of irony. I wish to give the governor of this squalid world the fight he is claiming tithe exemption for."

"The most disgusting thing is that for years the indigens wanted peace." the replicant Schafer put in, baring his teeth. "Some of them still do - you've seen them out in Akkan, waving banners instead of guns and getting shot at by the PDF for their trouble. But instead of integrating the indigens slowly and peacefully, the PDF kept bombing and killing - until bitter psychopaths like the ones you saw in Rakosu started sounding like the voice of reason."

"They were not hard to twist to our ends." the mechanical skeleton rasped. "The fact that they already worship a sun god was a delicious irony. And those clumsy mechanoids of yours...their pale look makes it...so easy to draw the conclusion that you are actually lobotomising and converting indigen prisoners."

"Maybe we should start." one of the AAT blanks next to Crenshaw hissed bitterly. Kally shot him a venemous look. She didn't think the Indigens deserved any more suffering heaped on them, but obviously some people thought differently.

The skeletal nightmare bobbed its head. "You would play even further into my hands. Your divide and conquer strategy is failing. Through my servants, I am leading and organising the Vilysians in Rakosu, re-energising them. As they win, and as the Enclave becomes more unstable, the Rytu axis are watching for weakness. If they invade, the self-interested Zakarn Axis will join them. You have seen to it that they hate you Imperials even more than they hate each other."

"The Enclave does not stand alone." Crenshaw coughed, managing to smile. "If the Rytus and Zakarnis want to play at a real war, they are in for a shock when the rest of the Imperial continent steps in. They won't win."

"No." the skeleton admitted, its witchfire eyes flickering over towards Crenshaw. "But they will create a war devastating enough to draw offworld attention, and to draw forces away from our true target."

"A glorified distraction..." Schafer grunted with a slight smirk. "Just like on Venatora? Is that all we are?"

The skeleton glided its head slowly around to look at the replicant. "Perhaps, but that does not mean my work cannot be...meaningful. What is the expression your template used to use - two birds, one stone?"

It turned slowly back to regard the prisoners.

"That is where you come in."

"You already said that you are not here to vivisect us." Crenshaw growled. His eyes glanced sideways towards Kally. Kally briefly met his gaze. "So what do you want?"

"Ah..." the skeleton whispered. The sound was like sand skittered across a crypt floor by a brief gasp of wind. "Some of the misguided dynasties tried to use your kind as soldiers, as the ones who seeded your gene pool once intended. The experiment was a failure - the constructs were too few, and they could not self-repair. A waste."

The filtered light of the force-field tinted the creature's face a sickly green, sliding across the mechanical skull like acid.

"My experiment is more enlightened. I want you for what our true goal has always been - a return to biological bodies."

The two AAT soldiers looked at each other fearfully, and then at Crenshaw and Kally. Crenshaw was still smiling mildly, his manacled hands resting on his knees. Kally was frowning, working through the assorted jumble of disconnected memories and data filtering into her skull, trying to get ahead of the conversation. "Not enjoying the silvered look, are you?"

The green haze rippled, parting like water as the hooded creature lunged forward into the cell. The black robe that covered it flickered and disintegrated into ash as it stepped through, revealing the hunched metal skeleton in all its monstrous glory. One of its silvered hands shot out to close around Crenshaw's throat, slamming him up against the rugged stone of the cave's back wall. Kally jumped to her feet, but her manacles kept her from interfering.

"Thermal receptors in my fingertips are telling me that you are in a cold sweat." the skeleton told Crenshaw in a cold monotone. It silently raised its arm, until the major was dangling level with its flickering eyes. "Pressure sensors are telling me that your heartbeat is accelerating in the face of impending death. But I cannot...feel you." The mechanical fingers jerked open, and Crenshaw dropped to the floor with a heavy thump. "And this vocaliser cannot convey the depth of my disgust."

Crenshaw coughed, and spat on the ground at the creature's heel as it whirled round and rippled back through the force-field. The creature itself turned back towards him as Schafer silently shrugged off his own black cloak and handed it to the creature.

"My Replicants were an attempt to craft bodies that we could download into." the creature whispered as it tugged the spare cloak over its skeletal frame. "The attempt failed - although as you can see we still found a use for them. What was the problem, you might ask? They still had...souls."

The creature paused to pull the hood of the cloak up over its head, shrouding its hideous skull once more.

"Baffling is it not?" it went on, gesturing slowly at Schafer as the replicant stood immobile, watching the prisoners. "A wholly artificial construct, but its mind still generates a presence in the dimension you call the warp. Perhaps my copying process was...too perfect. When I discovered this defect, I tried to use technology to sever the replicants from their souls. It was not efficient. Invariably, it killed the subject."

The creature turned slowly round to face Kally and the others once more.

"Which brings me once more back to you, the so-called blanks. You are...born...without souls. If my predictions are correct...your bodies are empty vessels - ripe for a Necrontyr consciousness to fill that void."

“What where you running from?” Kally asked. The Necron swung its gaze back her, and she steeled herself. “You abandoned your bodies for. . .those things, without a way to go back.” she gestured at the now cloaked figure. “The only reason you would do that is fear.”

“You are astute. In truth, we where tricked into giving up our bodies, thanks to the god-monster that lives inside your skull. Bio-transference should have saved our species, but instead it has made us extinct. We where running. From our failures. From our enemies. From death itself. It was a mistake, and one I will rectify.”

[PaintSerf]

"Bombs didn't stop 'em." Vincent grunted, with a sidelong look at Crenshaw.

“What an astute observation, Vincent.” The Major deadpanned like an unimpressed schola master. He barely spared the mercenary a half-heartedly witheringly glance away from scrutinizing the ruined plaza. “The bombs and servitor drones are not intended to stop ‘em.”

"Holy throne..." Kelly murmured, shaking her head as they came across the first bodies. Crenshaw nonchalantly halted next to the young verispex as he dispassionately took in the scene. After a few brief moments of assessment the Major offered an unimpressed grunt.

“This would be considered a dull affair by Uru standards.” Crenshaw noted almost conversationally and without solicitation. “Imagine how substantially worse this massacre could have been and then envision it in the Enclave or Illyrium.” The Major levelly stared down at her with distain. “Your conscience is not worth that much, Kelly.”

With his piece said Crenshaw swept past Kelly as Gavin trotted after his handler deeper into the plaza. The psyker wordlessly offered her an apologetic glance as they disappeared amongst the vehicles and toppled pillars. Once the Major found a secluded enough shelter of rubble he goaded his charge down into its relative security.

“You know the routine, Jenkins.” Crenshaw murmured as he prompted the psyker to deactivate the null halo. “Wait for me here when you are finished. I will not be long and it is not as if you have anywhere to go.” The Major scanned their environs with his bolter tight to the shoulder. “I know you remember how hospitable the indigens are to your kind.”

***

“Holy Father, I humbly pray that you watch over your faithful servants this day.” Sapphira murmured as she watched the Ghosts approach from behind a blown out vehicle. There were corpses all around the Sister, and she noted a young female curled over a nasty abdominal wound with prayer beads clutched in her outstretched hand. She was about how old I was when I took my vows. With that realization she frowned deeply with shame. We have failed you and Him on Terra, for allowing you to die without knowing His grace and love.

“We will make amends for this, Holy Father.” The Sister quietly vowed as she stared down the encroaching militia. Sapphira palmed on of her grenades and curled a finger through the pin, waiting for the all clear. “We will execute your will, and those who would oppose it.”

"Into them! For the Emperor!"

“Frag out!” Sapphira advised as she wrenched the safety pin clear. The Sister grunted as she popped out and hurled the explosive at the foot mobile indigens. She saw the grenade bounce on the pavement and into a militant. The man desperately tried to bat it aside as other Ghosts scrambled away. Sapphira did not see the explosion as she ducked back into cover, but she did hear the screams as survivors started firing at her.

“For the God-Emperor!” Sapphira exclaimed as she darted out of cover from the opposite side, shotgun up and blasting as she advanced in Solvan’s wake. She poleaxed a Ghost who was hammering her former position with autogun fire before putting down another that had been struggling to stand. The Sister reflexively winced at a bright flash of light as the confessor’s Rosarius absorbed a shot, and she pivoted her aim to the triggerman with an outraged snarl.

“You!” Sapphira shouted at the insurgent as Solvan’s hammer cracked into the truck’s engine block. Shock was evident even beneath the man’s bug-eyed goggles as he tried to swing around a battered old PDF lasrifle. She removed the militiaman’s expression and most of his skull with another slug. Sapphira gritted her teeth as a fireball that only could’ve come from Malpais arced past and reduced several Ghosts to as she emptied her magazine at the fleeing Ghosts.

“Kally, watch your back. You’ve got more hostiles entering the ground floor.” Sapphira cautioned as she slid into cover, taking a moment to catch her breath and reload. From the corner of her eye she watched Malpais and Solvan terminate the last Ghosts who hadn’t run for cover.

"Two more trucks incoming!"

“Repositioning now.” Sapphira acknowledged before pushing out from her shelter towards the next piece of cover. Halfway across the plaza she gasped in surprise as an emerald flash leapt from the cannon and traced a jagged line into the hab, causing the facing wall to burst into pieces. The beam split and scattered to blow out the few remaining windows in the surrounding buildings, leaping back and forth like caged lightning. Sapphira slid into relative safety behind a toppled column and curled an arm protectively over her head.

"Fokking hell! Xeno weapon on the truck! And I thought that sparky fokker Daxos was a pain in the ass!"

“Heretics!” Sapphira spat, with particularly venomous disgust, as she heard Vincent’s commentary. She exhaled sharply, and straightened up as the downfall of rubble ceased. It is the heretics you cannot see that are the truest danger…but you already knew that, Sapphira. You learned that the hard way. The Sister’s lips curled back in a grimace at that corrosive thought, and she chambered a slug as another technical roared up into the plaza.

“All heretics will die!” Sapphira condemned as she rolled out of cover and fired at the dismounting indigens. One of the Ghosts was impacted in her improvised armor and stumbled back into the technical as a boy who couldn't have been more than 15 standard, his face twisted with hate, went to one knee by the cover of a wall and fired off a long burst, one of the bullets pinging hard off the shoulder of Sapphira's carapace.

The Sister hissed at the impact and turned to meet hatred and gunfire in kind. She kept the trigger depressed and rapidly slammed the pump action, forgoing precision to challenge the autorifle’s rate of fire as she hustled back towards cover. It wouldn’t have been a contest, had one of her slugs not caught an older militiaman in the abdomen as he’d grabbed the boy to drag around the corner. The older man collapsed and threw off the boy’s aim.

Sapphira took the opportunity to dive behind another chunk of masonry. The Sister stared in horror as the xenos weapon fired again into Kally’s building, the green fire seemed to coil around the building like a constricting serpent, and the top floor disintegrated in on itself, swiftly followed by the floor below. She was tensed and ready to move again when automatic fire slammed into her position. Bullets chipped the pavement and shrapnel nicked off her borrowed armor as the chance to move evaporated.

"Hold or fall back?"

“Pinned.” Sapphira tersely voxed as she scooched back into cover. She heard the metallic rumble of a heavy machinegun and felt the impacts through the concrete. The torrent of fire gouged and tore at the rubble, steadily breaking it down. Sapphira coughed at the dust, gritting her teeth as she swapped her magazines and hunkered down in the precariously dwindling cover.

"Hold and have faith in the Emperor. Wait for a chance to get to us and regroup."

***

"I need you to use that damnable xeno weapon against these heretics, direct it at the truck and the ghosts blocking the road so that the rest of the team can reach us."

The psyker nodded at Solvan’s command, eyes closed as he concentrated his mind. I should commune with a xenos weapon? Unhallowed technology…unknown how to control…not enough time…too many variables…no. No, no…that would not be workable. Gavin’s brow furrowed as he projected his consciousness above the escalating firefight outside. The tableau of riotous activity and intense emotion was difficult to observe even from a distance. The Major would not approve of that…however something more direct…the path of least resistance.

Gavin narrowed his focus onto the indigens barricading the western road and the former sniper’s nest. The closer that he brought his consciousness towards the Ghosts, the more intimately Gavin could feel from them. Anger…belief…desperation…fear…hatred…love…pain. It took deliberate effort for the psyker not to be drowned by their terribly human emotions as he narrowed his focus on them. Find the weak link…and exploit it… Each of the militants was murderously driven by their faith; however Gavin could sense those enthralled by the local amphetamine cocktail. That would be…hmm…

You. Gavin concluded as he psychically pierced his way into the chosen victim’s consciousness in a flash of light, his own reality affected by the prism of a stimulant addled brain. The dusty grey ruins of Rakosu slowly tinged into an arterial red underneath a static sky, shot through with the strobe of misfiring neurons. People darted at a crawl as bullets sped lazily through the air. Buildings rocked back and forth with the tectonic grinding of well-worn down teeth. Everything around Gavin was blurred and distorted around the edges by the dry heat of this mental desert.

“Holy Lord of Light…” The man gasped through his deep and rapid breaths. Tears were streaming down his pale face as he stared at the radiant figure hovering above him, unable to turn away from the psychic manipulation. His finger slipped off the machine gun’s trigger. “Is…is that you?”

“Oh, uhm, no-” Gavin uneasily cleared his throat, belatedly realizing the opportunity while struggling to maintain his own mental barriers in this stimulant ravaged hell. He maintained the luminous aura while tweaking how the militant would perceive him. “None other, I mean. Yes, my son, it is I. In that I am your God, of course, the Holy Lord of Light. I am so very displeased by my so called faithful - most particularly you.”

“B…bu…but…we…I…My Lord, I…we…follow your will, through the Silver Prophet’s command-”

“Whom do you serve, my son - this so-called Silver Prophet or your own God?” Gavin cringed slightly as he paused for effect. “I find your lack of faith disturbing, and I will hold you accountable.”

“Oh God...I’m sorry…my God…I’m so sorry…” The militant hyperventilated in manic repetition, deaf to the demanding and querying shouts of his comrades. He rapidly blinked and whined highly in agony through gritted teeth, before shouting out pleadingly. “MY GOD! MY SWEET MERCIFUL GOD! FORGIVE ME! FORGIVE ME! TELL ME WHAT I CAN DO TO MAKE YOU FORGIVE ME?!”

“Ow, ah, err-” The psyker winced as the desperate cries echoed through the man’s mind. He shivered at the anguish he’d inflicted, and felt the alarming increase of thunderous heart palpitations. “Own your sins, my son. You must redeem my people who have been led astray, by which I mean your comrades and that you need to kill them.” Gavin pulled his levitating projection away from the Ghost and over his fellow militants. “Hear me and obey, as in do as you are told and smite those beneath me.”

***

Sapphira tensed in adrenaline fuelled expectation when the machine gun ceased pulverizing her position. Punctures in the rubble had forced the Sister down onto her belly as small arms fine continued to crack off what remained. Here comes the rush. Resolved to meet them head on Sapphira pushed up into a crouch and chambered a shot cartridge, shotgun levelled and ready. The Sister leaned out in time to see three Ghosts running at her mowed down by their own support weapon as its hysterically babbling gunner redirected to hose down the disabled xenotech armed technical.

"The indigens have their heads down! One of the trucks just fired at the other!"

Sapphira vaulted from her cover and raked the charging and scattering Ghosts with shot. The noose of agents tightened around their erstwhile ambushers and summarily tore them to pieces. In the chaotic rush Sapphira heard Solvan’s righteous condemnations and felt the heat wash of Malpais’ unnatural abilities as she saw Vizkop execute another militant. The Sister unhesitatingly finished off the few who escaped from their charges or Kelly’s over watch.

"Everyone get on the truck." Solvan's voice sparked in their earbeads. "Now!"

* * *

"Perhaps if we get close enough Gavin could do a sweep?" Kelly suggested, turning to glance in Gavin's direction. He stood alone by the threshold and fidgeted uncomfortably as he tensely regarded the hololith. "If the indigens hate psykers then they're not likely to have one of their own on hand to detect him."

“They hate us.” Gavin confirmed with a harrowed expression as he reached up and gripped the collar of his carapace. The psyker hunched and shuddered as he quietly muttered. “I know they do.”

Solvan scratched his chin. "Most importantly, we need to know where exactly are they keeping Sonder and Crenshaw. One of the first things the enemy will do in the event of an attack is start executing the prisoners. We'll need a team on the ground to gather as much intel as possible before committing the rest of our assets."

"Agreed." said Machairi. "I want you on the ground to make a full reconnaissance before Klimment's men drop."

“Speaking of Klimment's men," Tomas added, "I'll check them over, get you an evaluation of their equipment and capabilities. I'd like to know what kind of scum we have covering our arses. Who knows, we might be lucky and they may have some servo skulls we can use to do some quick scouting.”

"I would rather not tip the indigens off with something as obviously Imperial as a skull drone." Machairi said, twirling the command wand between finger and thumb thoughtfully. "I think Kelly has the right idea. Gavin's our best bet for determining the internal layout without us being detected in return."

“Oh…okay,” Gavin flinched slightly and averted his eyes from the scrutiny. He cleared his throat and then reluctantly focused on the interrogator to nod affirmatively. “Of course, Machairi, I can do that.”

“These heretics have been aided and abetted by the Rytu with armaments, recruits and sanctuary.” Sapphira ticked off their sins on her fingers as she scrutinized the map. “With that much collusion direct support from their military isn’t out of the question – even if they’re only reacting to our incursion.”

“Our military, as in the Enclave’s defense forces, intently monitor the borders for military activity.” Gavin interjected as a pensive frown creased his brow. “However what I mean to say is that the orbital insertion of Trader Klimment’s forces, and either or additionally the mobilization of Rytu troops, may be noticed and draw an appropriate response.”

[Azazeal849]

Southern Rytu, sunrise

“That's dawn.” Marc murmured as the first rays of the twin suns began to creep over the eastern horizon. "Where the hell are Klimment's men?"

The investigator pulled his copy of Gavin's sketch out from the webbing of his camo-slashed carapace armour and studied it for the third time, focusing on the question mark Gavin had scrawled over one of the cave system's deeper chambers. If he's right, that's where we'll find Kally and Crenshaw.

Ghost-projecting through the power cables that veined the mountain base, Gavin had been able to roughly map its layout, as well as the network of trips and booby traps that had been seeded across the mountainside. It had taken a painstaking six hours for Gavin and Vizkop to remotely deactivate Oswin's perimeter alarms without drawing attention, although Vizkop had grimly noted that he was doubtful that any of the heretek's creations inside the base could be disabled so easily.

The rest of the team had been busy observing the main routes up to the hideout, feeding information back to Klimment in orbit. They could only hope that Klimment's men were using the time to memorise Gavin's map and rehearse their attack, rather than to practice some way of betraying the team. Marc glanced over at interrogator Machairi, but their leader was preoccupied with sweeping her binoculars over the muddy track that led to the base's hidden east entrance. The interrogator had exchanged her usual elegant attire for grey-camo fatigues and flak, complete with rebreather and flare goggles, and her hair was bound up tightly at the back of her head.

Machairi had ordered Marc and Kelly to accompany Klimment's secondary attack through the southwest entrance, pincering the central caves of the base. The rest of the team would follow Klimment's primary attack from the southeast door, before splitting to secure the main barracks and the chamber which - hopefully - held their captive friends. More of Klimment's men would block the south entrance that seemed to be the rebels' vehicle park, and the dropships would remain on overwatch for any escape routes they had missed on the northern shoulder of the mountain. Marc couldn't help noticing that his assigned route, while the safer, was also the further from Gavin's question mark. That in turn made him wonder if Machairi was deliberately separating him the rescue mission, or her own presence. The interrogator had given away little to illuminate her motive.

Just as Marc considered the fact, there was a brief crackle through the team's vox pieces - a short blurt of static, followed by three short pips. A moment later, a faint roar began to build in the distance.

"Alright." Machairi told her remaining agents. She stowed away her binoculars, hooked her rebreater into position, and unslung her melta pistol. "Time to move. Weapons free."

Machairi gave Vizkop a nod, and at the flick of a transmitter switch green smoke began to billow from the flares that the team had placed an hour ago outside the base entrances. A pair of alarmed indigens came running from the south entrance, and almost immediately stumbled with a savage crack from Tomas and Vincent's rifles. A moment later, a formation of stub-winged dropships, reminiscent of stripped-down astartes thunderhawks, appeared in the sky to the north. They were diving down at an almost 45 degree angle, flames washing around their still-hot re-entry tiles. As the team watched they fired their braking thrusters with a colossal thwak-boom, and seemed to skid in the air as they raked round towards the mountain and its belching smoke markers.

+ + + + + +

"It was a mistake, and one I will rectify."

"Just like our mistake in not pursuing Pembroke sooner, when he accidentally jumped his ship to the Masters' world." Schafer added, and for a moment the replicant seemed to be biting the inside of its cheek. "It gives me no pleasure to put you through this a second time, agent Sonder, but we need to know what it said. Where it went."

"Oh yes." the skeleton whispered, raising a silver hand. "I will sift through your mind with some interest, mortal. And with somewhat more finesse than that primitive Strelilov."

Kally's stomach lurched, and her vision swam. She felt herself falling sideways, and her vision blacked out.

Her eyes flicked open to the sound of her mother crashing around the house. It was late, past down-cycle shift, judging by the subdued neon lights coming through her window and the low murmur of the hab block market outside. She could hear her mother swearing, kicking things. Quietly, she got out of her bed, and walked across the thin, worn down carpet to check that the improvised lock on her door was on. It wasn't much more than a length of scavenged chain she had drilled to the wall to hook around the handle, but it had been enough to dissuade her mother from trying to open the door.

She heard her mother shout her name, curse her out for not cleaning the house. That was fair, as she hadn't done most of her chores. She had been busy the past few shifts. Today she had been preparing to leave.

No. She kicked me out. That's wrong.

She crept back, quietly as a mouse, and looked under her bed. A pack was waiting, stuffed with ration packs, some guild notes she had swiped from her mothers penthrift shrine when she had been out, and a very sharp knife from the kitchen. A few changes of clothes, and her Dad's rebreather.

The bag is right. The knife turned out to be useless, it broke immediately. The ration packs lasted me a few days, the money a few days longer. Then I started to steal. I'd forgotten I'd spent all that time getting it ready.

The last thing to go was the snowglobe. She carefully picked it up from the nightstand under the rooms window, and marvelled at the black orb, flecked with green and silver. She held it close to her chest, the last thing her father had given her.

There was a distant knocking, at the habs front door. Kally scrambled into the bed as her mother stopped her ranting and went to the door, and Kally pulled her sheets over her head. She listened as outside muffled voices conversed.

“Kally! Kally, you little bitch! An Inquisitor is here! Get up and open your bedroom door right now!”

She tensed and froze in terror. Was this her mother playing tricks on her, tormenting her, trying to get through the door to the only place she was safe? She jumped back out of the bed and started to dress, throwing of her old worn out nightdress and climbing into her work-glove and some stout boots she had found and repaired. As she did, her door was knocked on. She grabbed her pack and slung it over her shoulders and went to the window. She grabbed the snowglobe, and jammed it into her pack.

“KALLY! OPEN THIS DOOR RIGHT NOW!”

The door rattled and shook and she pulled the window open. Immediately the smells and sights of the hab sink hit her like a blast of nostalgia, as the child Kally briefly remembered the adult she was.

Behind her the door was smashed open, yanking the chain out of the wall in a shower of concrete dust. Her mother, just as she remembered her. Wild eyed, tattered clothes, grimy nails and skin. After her father died she had just. . .stopped caring. About herself, about her. About the hab, about anything at all. Kally's adult eyes, trapped behind her childish skin, could pick out the trails of needle scars on her arms and the glazed look from flect' abuse, signs she had missed as a child. She met her mothers eyes for a second, and could see nothing but pure, unbridled hatred, burning through the self inflicted haze. Kally slithered out of the window and fell, landing with a thump on the metal roof below that covered a street vendors stall. She rolled from the roof and landed in the street, startling a few people in the market place. As she picked herself up and dusted herself down, she looked back up at the window and decided she would never, ever go back.

This is wrong. It wasn't like this. . . was it?

She turned and walked into someone. Normally people kept their distance. She backed up and looked up at the tall man, straight into the mismatched eyes of Pembroke.

“You still have it.” He gestured to the pack. “Good. I don't know why they picked this memory, but I'm guessing they've already gone through a few others looking for what they want.”

“I don't. . .I don't understand!” she shouted. “Leave me alone!”

“They're partitioning your mind.” He responded, ignoring her outburst. “Its easier to get secrets from a child than from an adult. You have to run. Get far away from here and. . .”

He was interrupted by a crash of glass from above. Kally and Pembroke looked up to see. . .something barrel through her window. It slammed down behind Pembroke in a crouch, and then started to rise.

It took Kally a moment to realise that it was the Prophet - not mechanical but alive, and all the more horrible for it. It was no longer skeletal, but lean and armoured; elegant servo-assisted plates cladding its limbs and torso, shimmering like liquid silver. Flat, wide panels guarded its shoulders, splayed like crooked wings. Machinery rose from its armoured back in spines, almost like the lumps of vertebrae arches. They hissed and sucked like some monstrous life support system. Kally could see nothing of the creature beneath the armour. In profile it looked almost human, but emaciated and ungainly; its arms were slightly too long, and its legs slightly too short. Its helmet was too long and too narrow, stretched down as if the creature's jaw was dislocated into a gaping scream. The breath that rasped from behind the visor was laboured, tumultuous. A horizontal slit in the narrow helmet gave the only hint of the being inside, showing two sunken, hate-filled eyes.

Pembroke took one look at the being, snapped round towards Kally and spoke a single word. "Run!"

A long glaive hazed into existence in the being's fist, crackling with caged lightning. The blade lanced forwards, and the projection of Pembroke burst into a million points of shattered light.

Kally turned on her heels and fled. She darted through the crowd, their faces blank, as the monster thundered after her. Where she slid and dodged, it smashed its way through obstacles with brute force.

“Give me the answers, child!” it whispered, the voice scratching at Kally's mind. She shut it out, clamping her hands over her ears and running to the lower sink.

Soon, she reached the edge of the hab and came to the barrens. Behind her, the Silver Prophet was closing. She dashed into the tangle of wreckage, before coming to the maw. It was the local name for the heat exchange unit that sucked thermal energy from mid hive manufacturing processes and moved it out and down, into the lower hive, the lower sink the entire area was named for. Some of that heat was recycled, but most was lost to the humid depths of the underhive. She walked to the edge and looked down. It seemed to go down forever. She unhitched her pack from her shoulder, and pulled out the knife.

“That won't help you here.”

She whirled, and the prophet was standing nearby. “Give me what he gave you, and this can all end.” It held out a clawed hand, and slowly advanced. Kally backed away until she felt the abyss at her back. There was no where else to go.

“Give me the pack, insolent girl!” it hissed, as it loomed over her. Kally held the pack out over the edge.

Good girl.

“Come any closer and I drop it!” she yelled. She brandished the knife threateningly, and the Prophet paused in its advance. “I'll do it!”

The prophet hissed, and lunged for the pack. Kally let it fall and the monster caught itself on the edge of the hole, and screamed in rage and frustration as the pack plunged into the darkness. It whirled on her immediately, grabbing her up and choking her, easily picking her off the ground and digging its armoured hands into her windpipe. She slashed the knife against its armour plates, and the thin blade snapped.

Yeah, that's about right.

“You are stubborn.” It hissed. “This is the second time you have foiled me in this little game. But you will not be able to do that forever, and I only need to win once.”

It turned and with terrible strength, tossed Kally over the edge. She plunged into the darkness.

Kally came to on the floor of the cell, feeling exhausted and sweating all over. She started to push herself back up.

"What is wrong?" the silver skeleton was asking Schafer. It's tone was as flat and soulless as ever, but its witch-fire eyes were blazing.

Schafer had a battered old hand-vox to his ear, and was barking orders and threats into it. "Unidentified dropships have just landed and are deploying troops outside all three main entrances." he reported, before cursing. "What the feth happened to Oswin's perimeter alarms?"

The Necron threw out its arm, and for a moment Kally thought it was to strike Schafer, but instead it was to close around a stave of segmented white metal which came flying into its hand from against the wall. The creature whirled around, and as it did so its body dissolved in a twist of green flame.

"I'll get Haarlock out." Schafer barked into his vox in Obrantu. His eyes flashed emerald green as he turned and strode away from the holding cell, out of Kally's sight.

+ + + + + +

Marc gritted his teeth. "Stay close." he told Kelly as the two of them pushed up from the ground and started to run down towards the second plume of smoke.

Men in black carapace armour began to drop like a cascade of metal beads from the sides of the dropships, stacking up by the tunnel entrances. As the rest of the team sprinted up the track towards them, Xanthius dropped down from the leading lander's rear ramp, grinning beneath his jet-black helmet.

"Shall we?" he prompted the agents.

+ + + + + +

Some of the tunnels were murderously cramped, and as soon as the initial shock had worn off, the indigens were fighting back hard.

"There's something inhuman here!” the team heard over the vox from one of Klimment‘s squads. “It's throwing lightning! It's murdering us!"

“They’ve got xenos weapons with them.” Machairi said grimly as the team cleared a side chamber in a thunder of grenades. “Watch yourselves.”

No sooner had she spoken, something armoured in red crashed out of the side-tunnel on the group's left, all whining servos and spinning blades. A flickering plasma halo sparked into life along a blade in its right hand as it whipped round to face the agents.

"Well that can fok right off." Vincent snarled, and blew the thing's head off with a thunderous blast from his shotgun. As the construct dropped, raining black fluid, Vizkop darted into the tunnel the thing had emerged from.

"Where the fok are you going?" Vincent protested.

“Another one of Oswin's tech-assassins.” Machairi guessed. It had clearly been sent ahead to stall them. As Vizkop had predicted, the heretek was fleeing - and Vizkop had to find him before he succeeded.

"Go with him." The interrogator ordered Malpais and Lia, pointing the two psykers after Vizkop. She did not want the ad mech assassin going alone, no matter how personal his vendetta. She snapped hand signals to the rest of the team and to the squad of Klimment’s men pushing up behind. “We’re about a hundred metres from the holding area. Glabrio, Sapphira, take Gavin and get our people out - then fall back and regroup. Solvan, Tomas, you’re with me. We need to lock down the south entrance.”

“You heard the lady.” the team heard Xanthius snap from behind them, and Klimment’s marines split into two groups to follow the agents.

+ + + + + +

"Go on ahead." Schafer snapped at Haarlock as he led the indignant rogue trader through the warren of tunnels. "They're right behind us."

“I’ve been taking care of Imperials who got too close for years.” Haarlock said coldly as one of the power generators feeding the lights abruptly failed, and his escorting soldiers groped to switch on their lasguns’ muzzle lights. “What makes these ones so special?”

“Trust me.” Schafer growled, yanking a pair of pistols from his hip holsters and whirling round. He disappeared back down the tunnel, and within seconds there was an angry crack crack of lasfire.

One of the soldiers glanced at Haarlock. The rogue trader cocked his scarred eyebrow, and shrugged. “To hell with him then.”

He turned and hastened after the others into a cavern leading towards one of the network’s secondary exits. The cavern was a makeshift barracks, strewn with bedrolls, storage crates and indigen detritus. Haarlock scattered a small Vilysian prayer shrine with his foot as he swerved round a weapons locker. He wasn’t worried about the xenos artefacts being found - he had already seen to it that their delivery could not be traced back to him, and plenty of friends on the eastern continent who could refute the ravings of captured prisoners. Whatever happened to Schafer, Oswin, and the Emperor-damned indigens, Roose Haarlock would survive.

Some people might call such certainty arrogant. Haarlock called it the self-confidence of a tightly-focused will.

One of Haarlock’s bodyguards pulled up short as the cave wall in front of him suddenly erupted in a red flash. There was a roaring blast and a spray of shattered rock as a gaping hole appeared in the wall. Interrogator Machairi shouldered through it with her melta pistol still coiling steam, Tomas and Solvan at her shoulders. Despite the surprise, Haarlock’s soldier reacted automatically and fast, switching his grip to hammer his lasgun butt towards Machairi’s face as she appeared. The interrogator skipped to the side, and turned the dodge into a spin that brought the back of her fist crashing into the soldier’s temple. The soldier fell back, cracking his head hard against the wall, and Tomas put a shot through his forehead before he could even rebound.

Torch-beams scissored, and lasbeams hissed back and forth as Haarlock’s men scrambled for cover. Smoke gusted up in the confined space as fabrics and wood caught fire, and the dust from vaporised rock and metal erupted into the air.

“Going somewhere, heretic?” Machairi shouted across at Haarlock as she flattened herself against the wall.

+ + + + + +

Blind grenades exploded in a torrent of light and smoke as Vincent and Glabrio barged through the narrow opening and pivoted to sweep the corners of the chamber, Vincent spinning to the right, Glabrio to the left.

"Here! We're in here!" one of the blanks alongside Kally and Crenshaw shouted. Vincent and Glabrio snapped round as Gavin and Sapphira entered the room.

"Hey. Bolt magnet." Vincent growled at Gavin, stabbing with a finger to draw the psyker's attention to the shimmering force-field keeping the blanks confined. Gavin locked eyes with Crenshaw through the barrier, swallowed, and raised his hand. The green curtain imploded with a crack, and the manacles around the blanks' wrists and ankles fell away.

“We’re fine.” one of the AAT guards coughed at Sapphira as she ran forward to help.

"Get after Schafer." Crenshaw rasped as Kally hauled him to his feet. "That silver prophet can't hide among normal citizens, but he can."

+ + + + + +

Marc swore as a flash of green lightning destroyed the shoulder of rock he was sheltering behind, sending a glare of sickly light coruscating over his armour. He threw a protective arm across his sister's front and dropped back a pace, returning fire with his bullpup autogun. The savage rattle of its discharge ricocheted from the stone walls, but the bullets themselves shattered into prismatic splinters against an oil-slick bubble projected just ahead of the indigen position.

“Team, Kelly!” Kelly reported from behind her brother, wiping dust from her visor and the pict-stealer mounted on the side of her helmet. “Shielded xenos weapon emplacement blocking our way to the barracks!”

+ + + + + +

No sooner had Sapphira and Kally taken off after Schafer, then there was another flash, brighter than the blind grenades, as a tentacle of lightning coiled around Vincent and hurled him across the chamber. He smashed into the wall beside the alcove that had held the blanks, taking the impact on his mechanical shoulder. The force of the collision knocked the breath from his lungs and replaced it with a solid rock of pain.

The white flash turned green as a pillar of emerald flame rose up in the centre of the chamber, parting to reveal a nightmare figure of silvered bone. Green fire blazed in its empty eye sockets, and green lightning sparked around the segmented staff it carried in its right hand. The glittering skeleton didn't speak, only raised itself to full height and brought the staff crashing down on the cave floor, sending a shockwave of fissured stone hurtling towards the agents.

[Jarms48]

The investigator pulled his copy of Gavin's sketch out from the webbing of his camo-slashed carapace armour and studied it for the third time, focusing on the question mark Gavin had scrawled over one of the cave system's deeper chambers. If he's right, that's where we'll find Kally and Crenshaw.

"Those colours..." Glabrio paused, gesturing a finger to the mans camouflage, his grin hidden behind his face shield. "They don't really seem to suit you."

They were one of the same, both had swapped their more traditional attire for combat gear. Though unlike the investigator, the ex-regulator had taken to wearing his old kit. The arbiter symbols had been taken away long ago, swapped out for the imposing -I- of the inquisition. He was suited to close encounters, everything about him screamed for this type of scenario. He'd taken his arbite shotgun from the armoury, and grabbed shells of all varieties. A shell bandolier fell across his chest, stuffed with flechette, gas rounds, stun shells, and a few (illicitly acquired) bolt shells modified to fire from his weapon.

It hung from his back on a sling. A shell clip attached neatly to the weapons stock, a lamp fastened to the weapons side rail, and a laser sight clamped upon the shotguns top rail. His hands patted the pair of pistol holsters that sat on either hip, before his digits moved to play idly with the leather strap that held them shut. He could feel the shockmaul dangling from his webbing behind him, a small comfort, and he was thankful for the weapon in the odd case the situation turned into a bloody brawl. He grimaced, then motioned to Machairi.

...The interrogator had exchanged her usual elegant attire for grey-camo fatigues and flak, complete with rebreather and flare goggles, and her hair was bound up tightly at the back of her head.

"Now our lady there," he wove a hand over to Machairi, "she wears the look as if she was born to it. Can't say what I find more attractive, our lady in her dresses, or our lady in uniform."

...

"Alright." Machairi told her remaining agents. She stowed away her binoculars, hooked her rebreater into position, and unslung her melta pistol. "Time to move. Weapons free."

"I suppose that's enough comfort for one day then, right, time to kick the arses of a few collaborators." Said Glabrio, as he unslung his arbiter shotgun.

* * * * *

He patted the shoulder of one of the mercenaries ahead of them, they stood against the wall, stacked against the southeast entrance. Grenade first, always grenade first. His training flooded back to him, grenades were passed down the line, and the lead merc pulled the pins of a trio of frags before tossing them down the hall in quick succession. The detonations rang out one by one, screams and the crashing of objects following each of them in turn. A pair of smoke grenades came down the line next, and they rolled down the tunnel bleaching plumes of thick white smoke as they tumbled and turned. Visor thermals were activated, weapons were raised, and the mercs on either flank of the door stormed in.

Flashes of lasfire streamed across the smoke, bolts claiming those indigens blinded and unable to find their quarries. The second pair of mercs trained their rifles on those already injured from shrapnel, many of them screaming and bleeding out, finished with a killshot to the head or chest. A spray from your weapon, good. Glabrio stormed in himself, his shotgun raised, and he pulled the trigger as an indigen sprang from an adjoining room. The flechette sent him recoiling, the man lost his footing and sent him down into the wall beside him, his chest in ruin.

The plumes settled, thermals were flicked off. Fireteams stacked on the doors of the adjacent rooms. Again, grenades. Glabrio grasped for the door knob, opened it and pushed it ajar just enough for the merc across from him to plunge another frag into the room. He closed it quickly, waited for the detonation, then the duo swept it clean. They met back in the corridor, ready to push their advance deeper. They had the initiative, though there was no telling how long that would last. The deeper they pushed, the more numerous and the better armed their opponent would become.

...

Some of the tunnels were murderously cramped, and as soon as the initial shock had worn off, the indigens were fighting back hard. They'd stuck to moving in twos, hugging the tunnel supports as they went, and the indigens pouring fire into them at every opportunity. Lucky shots brought down a pair of mercs, a bolt to the neck forced a man to crumple to the floor instantly. The second was luckier, a flicker of lasfire impacted one of his armours leg joints, sending him into the deck violently. Screaming, a quick thinking peer grabbed him by the shoulder and dragged him to the rear lines.

Glabrio's shotgun found the indigen with abandon, flechettes scored the mans leg, tearing through flesh like tissue paper. The indigen fell forward, firing his lasrifle as he went, bolts effortlessly skirting off the floor.

...

"Go with him." The interrogator ordered Malpais and Lia, pointing the two psykers after Vizkop. She did not want the ad mech assassin going alone, no matter how personal his vendetta. She snapped hand signals to the rest of the team and to the squad of Klimment’s men pushing up behind. “We’re about a hundred metres from the holding area. Glabrio, Sapphira, take Gavin and get our people out - then fall back and regroup. Solvan, Tomas, you’re with me. We need to lock down the south entrance.”

"Aye, my lady." He turned his head to Sapphira and Gavin, and gestured for them to go. "With me, come on."

* * * * *

"Get after Schafer." Crenshaw rasped as Kally hauled him to his feet. "That silver prophet can't hide among normal citizens, but he can."

"Before you go, take this." Glabrio offered. He reached for one of his pistol holsters, and pulled a pair of spare magazines from his webbing, then held it out in offering. "I can't let you go unarmed. I expect that back."

...

"I take it you can still fight, Crenshaw?" He asked, already reaching for his other sidearm, readying the next offering.

* * * * *

No sooner had Sapphira and Kally taken off after Schafer, then there was another flash, brighter than the blind grenades, as a tentacle of lightning coiled around Vincent and hurled him across the chamber. He smashed into the wall beside the alcove that had held the blanks, taking the impact on his mechanical shoulder. The force of the collision knocked the breath from his lungs and replaced it with a solid rock of pain.

"Vincent!" Glabrio shouted, his head momentarily following the old veteran as he flew across the camber. His eyes narrowed on their latest quarry, and he kept his distance, rounding it slowly.

"Well aren't you the ugliest thing I've ever seen! ...You're outnumbered, and outgunned. You're an abomination to the Emperor, and I sentence you to die." Glabrio assured it, his tone cold.

The white flash turned green as a pillar of emerald flame rose up in the centre of the chamber, parting to reveal a nightmare figure of silvered bone. Green fire blazed in its empty eye sockets, and green lightning sparked around the segmented staff it carried in its right hand. The glittering skeleton didn't speak, only raised itself to full height and brought the staff crashing down on the cave floor, sending a shockwave of fissured stone hurtling towards the agents.

Glabrio rolled to the side, steadied himself on his knees, and snapped a flechette shell from his shotgun. It went wide, and he cursed quietly to himself as he rose back to his feet. He racked the pump, started rounding the creature again, and fired another shell. The flechettes deflecting effortlessly off its living metal. He fired another, and another, both shells having the same effect as the first.

[Azazeal849]

"Now our lady there," he wove a hand over to Machairi, "she wears the look as if she was born to it. Can't say what I find more attractive, our lady in her dresses, or our lady in uniform."

"Flattery won't get you an early promotion, Glabrio." Machairi grinned without looking round.

+ + + + + +

Glabrio rolled to the side, steadied himself on his knees, and snapped a flechette shell from his shotgun. It went wide, and he cursed quietly to himself as he rose back to his feet. He racked the pump, started rounding the creature again, and fired another shell. The flechettes deflecting effortlessly off its living metal. He fired another, and another, both shells having the same effect as the first.

The Necron swung its staff in a blazing arc, and a flash of lightning hurled Glabrio back against the wall. The wall itself caved in, sending smoke billowing into a chamber where bullets were already whipping back and forth. An indigen and a stormtrooper, who had been grappling on the ground with knives, were blown away from each other and simply froze in horror as they saw the metal skeleton framed in the gap where the wall had been.

The Prophet ignored them, and also ignored Glabrio and Gavin as it rounded on the holding cell where Crenshaw and the two AAT soldiers still stood.

"Where is Kally Sonder?" it rasped at them in a toneless whisper.

[Atrum Daemon]

The cybernetic assassin dashed through the confined space of the tunnel. He could hear two sets of footsteps behind him and gathered that they must have sent back-up after him. He appreciated the gesture knowing he might need the extra help to keep Oswin cornered. He could see the end of the tunnel ahead and drew his pistols rather than the twin blades sheathed across his lower back. The footsteps behind him were growing closer and he glanced behind to see Malpais carrying Lia and assumed the increased speed was a telekinetic trick on Malpais's part. He could see the door ahead and cursed in binary. There was no time for caution! He shouldered the door as he reached it and it lurched open only for him to be grabbed by a large, cybernetic hand and tossed bodily across the room of the workshop.

The mechanical thing that had grabbed him was tall and bulky. Vizkop caught a glimpse of the remains of a human being around the head and chest before a pair of metal hands grabbed him and hauled him to his feet. “Found me,” Oswin rasped, heaving Vizkop over his shoulder to land hard on a metal table.

Oswin was clad in the tattered robe of the Mechanicus and what had been a pristine suit of Enginseer power armour before be modified it to suit his tastes. The door flew open under a torrent of telekinetic force and Lia, her body augmented by her talent with biomancy, launched herself through it at Oswin's bodyguard. Vizkop rolled off the table moments before Oswin's servo arm pounded into it where his head had been. Rolling around the table, Vizkop squeezed the triggers for both his guns and unleashed a pair of armour-piercing incendiary rounds on a trajectory clear at Oswin. The impact sent Oswin back a step and ignited his robe, prompting him to tear the burning garment away. Oswin rushed Vizkop, the volley of shots fired in return cutting into his armour. The fist impacting Vizkop sent the assassin onto his back and his pistols skittering across the floor.

Across the room, Malpais and Lia were dealing with Oswin's surprisingly tenacious creation. A second set of limbs had detached and it was dealing with the two rather well. The constant back and forth kept Malpais from concentrating on a single thing, thus rendering his telekinetic abilities less effective and the bulked primary limbs were faring well against Lia's augmented physique despite the dents and cracks from her crushing impacts. The secondary limbs sprouted powered blades after being cut by Malpais's sword wreathed in psychic energy. The playing field changed, Malpais doing his best to keep the attention of both powered blades so the abomination would not bisect Lia with them. Malpais evaded a scissoring strike by the monstrosity, but was nicked by one and ended up with a long gash down his arm.

Vizkop did a hand-spring to get back away from Oswin and avoid being crushed by his servo-arms. He pulled the ornate pistol on his thigh from its holster and fired. The red beam of the Volkite pistol cut through the dim light of the workshop and with an explosive impact severed one of Oswin's servo-arms. The second arm picked up a large piece of metal debris and tossed it at Vizkop, forcing him to evade it and throw off his aim. Oswin took the chance to close in deliver a punishing blow to Vizkop's body followed by a second and a third before lifting him off his feet and tossing him away with a whirr of powered servos.

Vizkop pushed himself to his feet, spitting up thick blood as a broken section of his helmet fell away to expose part of his face. He was blocking out the pain caused by Oswin's crushing blows, knowing without a doubt that he could not take any more of those hits lest his subdermal armour buckle.

Malpais found his opening with the bodyguard when it took the time to throw Lia away from it. Mustering himself, Malpais sent the machine flying with a blast of telekinetic force before catching it with his will. His first motion tore off the secondary limbs and held them in place. The second ripped the heavy primary limbs free from the torso. Giving a wrenching gesture with both hands, Malpais tore the machine in half at the waist and sent both pieces to opposite ends of the workshop, the heavier end crashing into Oswin and sending him against the wall. “Hold him there!” Vizkop said.

Malpais nodded and exerted his will upon the severed torso of the machine, pinning Oswin in place before ripping his second servo-arm off for good measure. Vizkop stood and holstered the Volkite, taking the time to retrieve his other pistols before walking to stand before Oswin. “Here to kill me now?” Oswin asked.

“Oh that would be far too easy,” Vizkop said with a shake of his helmeted head. “There's so much for you to tell us.”

-And why would I tell you anything?- Oswin queried, switching to binary. -Inquisitorial interrogation methods are rather lax and old-fashioned.-

-I do not recall saying the Inquisition would interrogate you- Vizkop pointed out. -I stated that we would. This will be much easier if you come willingly.-

-Have I seemed the type to do something like that?-

-Well these are exceptional circumstances- Vizkop said. -The fact that I found you here confirms just what I thought. That you had not run because you got in too deep. For all your touting about domination, you have a habit of submitting yourself to the will of the worst dregs of the galaxy. It is pathetic, Oswin.-

-You call me pathetic when you are no different!- Oswin retorted. -Throwing yourself down in service to masters you have never even seen!-

-This line of dialogue is pointless- Vizkop said, refusing to be baited into justifying himself to a heretek. -You can either die now and be forgotten forever or you can turn yourself over to me and at the end of this be sent to my masters to tell all you know.-

-I have no other choice- Oswin conceded. -I relent and accept-

“Excellent,” Vizkop said with a nod as he switched back to Gothic and turned his head to the two psykers. “Oswin here has surrendered and offered his service.”

“What.” Oswin said flatly.

“And if he refuses or tries anything,” Vizkop went on, “I want you, Malpais, to put him in a coma.”

“Easily done,” Malpais said, to which Oswin had no reply.

“We're gonna let you down,” Vizkop said. “And you are going to reassemble those bolt guns on your workbench.”

Oswin nodded, his eyes filled with nothing but hate and violence toward Vizkop. Malpais let the heretek down and he moved his bulky frame to the workbench and began reassembling the weapons under the trio's watchful eyes. “Lia,” Vizkop said, “report back to the Interrogator that we have secured target Oswin and will be rejoining the attack momentarily. I believe some of Klimment's men are nearby if you require an escort.”

Lia gave a quick nod before darting off to deliver the news. Vizkop moved to the other side of the bench to observe Oswin's work. He saw why Oswin was regarded as a gifted man from the way he reassembled the bolters with ready ease. Like he had been around the weapons all his life. Vizkop and Malpais exchanged glances, both knowing there was no time to celebrate yet. The true mastermind of all of this still functioned.

[Thrannix]

The man Tomas had shot through the head hadn’t finished falling to the floor when Solvan was already through the breach. Around him the crossfire began in earnest as evidenced by the flashing of his Rosariu's protective aura dissipating las-bolts as the cramped space slowly filled with smoke. Even with the protection granted by the holy artifact trying to run down the narrow barracks without previously disrupting the entrenched enemy was suicidal. Grenades could be useful but it risked damaging the structural integrity of the underground passage. It was for such occasions that he brought along his hand-flamer. As Tomas had often said to him, the key about flamers is making sure you were the first to use them. In one fluid motion he unhlostered the weapon, set it to maximum, and fired while coming down barrack's tunnel.

A flame weapon, even a small one like a hand flamer, does several things when used in a closed space, beside burning enemies alive, as Haarlock’s men soon found out. The flash of intense light in the previously dark tunnel left unprepared soldiers momentarily blind, the heat wave that, depending on the proximity to the weapon, boiled away the first layers of exposed skin, all added to the sudden drop in breathable oxygen as the flames greedily consumed it together with the toxic fumes that filled the air making for a devastating effect on unprepared opposition.

“The Emperor’s Justice is here for you, heretics!” Solvan’s voice rumbled against the stone walls as he strode out of the ball of flame and smoke now hefting his activated Holy Warhammer stepping on the melted remains of the soldiers unfortunate enough to be caught directly by the burning promethium. “There can be no escape from His judgment! Repent and die!”

Haarlock’s men coughed and gasped while blinking away tears and flash blindness, as testament to their discipline they didn’t retreat and didn’t run away. They stood their ground and tried, even if ineffectively, to maintain the suppressing fire. But the priest had already closed the gap and the first swing of the hammer quickly turned some unlucky bastard into a stain of viscera and bone fragments stuck to the wall.

As the priest crashed into the soldiers Alia and Tomas, followed by a contingent of Klimment's men, were quick to take advantage of the momentary dismantling of enemy coordination and casualties started to mount heavily against Haarlock's side.

Tomas followed swiftly on his friends heels, administering kill shots to the injured and the dying. Behind his rebreather his eyes where cool, calm and collected. Unlike Solvan, who fought from the heart, with the passion of faith, Tomas fought from the brain, with hard won experience. Between the two there was no escape. Alia was next in line, shouting orders to Klimments men who broke down into fire teams to sweep rooms with murderous hails of lasfire and tossed grenades. Explosions played counterpoint to the screams of the dead and dying as the Imperials smashed aside all opposition. Tomas had shot through three magazines already, and was on his fourth. In situations like this you didn't spare the ammunition. You didn't go for pretty headshots or clean kills. You filled your enemies with bolts till they went down, then you did it again.

Solvan turned to block a swing from the nearest enemy when a shower of las-propelled crystals peppered his Rosarius' defense field. By proximity two shards caught one of Klimment's mercenaries in the neck, instantly the man crumpled to the floor convulsing and chocking in blood and vomit. He quickly realized that several other mercenaries had gone down with similar symptoms, but they seemed too far away to be victims of the same shooter. Yet he hadn't seen any of Haarlock's goons carrying with such equipment.

In one of the directions from which the deathly salvo had come a tall, fancy dressed, red bionic eyed man stood, his face framed by long dark hair bore an expression of slight annoyance at seeing his intended target still standing. Solvan knew, from the mission files, that the man was Roose Haarlock. Roose had a needle pistol that he holstered slowly, taking a power sword on a lazy grip on his right hand, while the other was kept enigmatically within his coat pocket. Solvan wondered why he looked so unsettlingly calmed in the middle of the carnage they were enacting on his men. He decided such questions were for later and began making his way towards him.

From behind the man came a charge of armoured men, wearing heavier carapace armour and equipped with naval shotguns, heavy autopistols and shock mauls.* Tomas yelled a warning and emptied the remaining half mag into the chest of one of the new attackers, finally knocking him down before being forced to discard his lasgun for his sword.* He spotted a familiar crest on the suit of the man facing him as he blocked his downward swipe with the mace.

“Haarlocks men!” He shouted. He backed up towards Alia, who stepped smoothly around Tomas left side and fired her melta pistol into the rogue traders guard face. His head exploded along with his helmet in a gristly shower of bone and ceramics, as his brain cooked and evaporated under the intense blast of heat. In the sudden scrum that engulfed a low vaulted chamber, Tomas and Alia lost track of Solvan and Haarlock, as they fought back to back against the elite men of Haarlocks personal guard.

Solvan similarly had lost Roose in the fray, but only for a fraction of a second, and before the priest could register the threat Haarlock had stepped inexplicably through his guard and slashed with his power sword at his left arm, cutting through the rosarius barrier, cloth and armor underneath. Reflexively Solvan twisted away avoiding the Heretic from amputating the limb, but still manage to inflict a bone deep gash of burnt muscles and nerves.

The bishop didn't have time to wonder how Roose had pulled that trick on him. He quickly spun his thunderhammer aiming for Haarlock's mid-section. And for a moment Solvan was certain that he had him. The man was still recovering from his previous swing and the effective field of the thunderhammer was bound to catch him even if the man moved like an eldar. But Haarlock's silhouette shimmered, lost focus, and his swing hit only empty air as Haarlock was inexplicably just out of reach.

Solvan was left completely open as his damaged left arm failed to respond to arrest the momentum of the weapon. Another stab came aimed at his spine, luckily this time the rosarius field held long enough for Solvan to roll away from the attack. When he came back up Haarlock was grinning, keeping the same unworried stance he had at the beginning of the confrontation.

What kind of unholy witchery is this? Thought Solvan, furious and desperate in equal measure. It definitely looked like a psychic ability, yet he it didn't feel like the warp, there was no drop in temperature, no unnatural feeling in his gut. But in the end it didn’t matter, all that mattered was taking the bastard down. He lifted his Warhammer once more.

"Faith is such an oddity." Haarlock mused in a cultured accent, the hint of amusement in his voice. "Do you actually believe you are going to be able to hit me with such a cumbersome and ugly weapon?"

"No, not really." Solvan answered flatly, and the priest enjoyed stealing for a moment Haarlock's insufferable smirk.

"But I am." Tomas said as the blast of shot hit Haarlock's back.* Tomas tossed the liberated shotgun, taken from one of the corpses at his feet, aside as Haarlock fell.

As the man dropped, more from the kinetic impact of the shot than any fatal wound since his armor had absorbed most of the slugs, Solvan saw how his left hand dropped an oddly looking hand watch. Solvan saw the look in Haarlock's eyes as he fell and for the first time since the beginning of the fight he saw fear in them. The man's stare fixated in that watch as it turned in the air, not on the floor he was falling to meet, not on his surrounding enemies, he only saw that watch. That's when the bishop knew with Emperor given certainty that whatever the watch really was it needed to be destroyed.

As Haarlock desperately stretched his hand to reach for the device Solvan brought his hammer down on the wretched thing. Haarlock realized the priest's intent and from his bionic eye shot a crackling beam of red energy towards the priest. But the shot was hurried and Roose didn't have a good angle being sprawled on the ground, the shot went wide. The hammer felled unopposed.

Heretic hand, righteous weapon and xeno artifact came together for an instant before the hammer crashed into the delicateframe of the cronograph and an explosion of green lightning engulfed Solvan and Haarlock alike.

Then the lightning got sucked back to where the artifact was destroyed and vanished, leaving behind Solvan and Haarlock unconscious on the ground. And to anyone who bothered to look, it was evident that both men had aged during the event. Solvan’s beard and hair were white as snow, with more wrinkles running through his face. But Haarlock had clearly taken the worst of it, perhaps because Solvan was only in contact with the source indirectly through his thunder-hammer, but for every year Solvan aged, Haarlock lost ten. Instead of the proud man at his prime only a decrepit octogenarian was left, wearing garments that now seemed too big for his emaciated frame and fragile bones.

“Damn.” Muttered Tomas. He stepped up and caught Solvan as he wavered, before speaking into his comm. unit. “I need medical and containment at my location.”

-------15 Years Ago-----

The deamon in its hubris never suspected that Solvan could constitute real danger. But the bishop knew surprise can only get you so far and the excorcism was taking too long. The deamon was fighting desperatley for its flesh vessel.

Everything happen in a second. Solvan heard the crack-hiss of protection runes breaking and melting within the walls as the deamon harnesed whatever power it could from the warp. The aquila was swatted aside and a fist met the priest's chest sending him against the prision wall.

Solvan felt air leave his lungs under broken ribs and he clenched his teeth forcing himslef to stay awake. As his vision blurred for a moment he saw the deamon. It lay unmoving, gurgling and coughing. The trick had cost it, his sister's twisted face was a mass of charred and broken flesh, like dry ground breaking under an unforgiving sun. Pieces of skin and hair fell to the stone floor in trails of putrid smoke.

"You'll pay... for that." The thing threatened getting to its feet.

Solvan could see the aquila glinting to the scarce light in the cell from the far corner to his left. He started moving slowly towards it. But deep down he knew he wasn't going to be able to reach it before the daemon got to him. But hope never needed a solid base to be built upon.

"Ally, I know you're in there." Solvan began to say while the creature made its way towards him.

"She sure is. But you don't want to know what I am doing to her in here." The daemon tapped its temple with a grin. "Better speak with the new management now."

Solvan ignored the taunting words while slowly closing on the aquila.

"You have to fight it Ally." Solvan pleaded praying to the Emperor to grant them a miracle they didn’t deserve. "You're stronger than you think sister. You have to try, for yourself, for the Emperor... for me."

"Save your breath Solvan, you are going to need it for the screams."

The daemon wasn't rushing, letting Solvan get painfully close to his obvious objective before taking his sliver of hope away.

"This has been fun," the creature mocked as he stretched its clawed hand to grab the priest, "but- nnnngh!" The daemons voice broke into a warble of painful grunts as it grabbed its head with both hands. "Impossible!" It raged as it tried to move again but the girl's legs wouldn't budge. Solvan could have sworn he heard her sisters whispering voice mixed into the scream, now Solvan it said.

He wasn't going to waste his chance. Ignoring the pain he leapt towards the aquila.

By the time the deamon had beaten whatever was left of Allanas' consciousness back into some dark corner of her mind and regained control it was too late.

The priest clasped his sister by the throat with the same hand that held the recovered aquila. The thing screamed again at the cleansing touch.

Solvan took a metal flask from within his robes with his free hand, took the cap if with his teeth and poured the holy water into the possesed girl's mouth. The liquid boiled and steamed drowning the screaming as the creature tried without success not to drink the burning liquid.

"Exorciso te, omnis spiritus inmunde, in nomine Deus Imperator Omnipotentis!" He ordered feeling the broken ribs* jolting painfully with the effort.

Intense light started to glow out of Allana's mouth and eyes as the creature screams grew weaker and distorted. Then a flash of blinding white and a thunderclap clouded Solvan senses.

Solvan kept holding his sister tightly as his eyes began to properly process his surroundings. Her face was hers again, the burning skin, the fangs, the claws, they were gone. Her eyes stared at an imaginary point past her brother, eyes streaming tears but without emotion on her features.

Solvan understood that the exorcism was done, they had defeated the evil that infected her. But his sister's mind had suffered greatly in the ordeal, probably beyond any chance of recovery.

"Ally? Are you allright?" It was a question so stupid he was almost embarrassed, but his tired brain couldn't come up with anything else. As he feared his sister didn't react, a thin line of drool fell from her half opened lips.

A knock came from the door startling the priest.

"Father visiting time is over. Everything allright in there?" The bored voice of the guard could be heard muffled from the other side of the door.

"In a moment my son." The bishop managed keeping his voice steady.

"I'll have to leave now Ally, I'm sorry, I'm so very sorry." He mumbled caresing his sisters cheek, his eyes filled with tears that refused to fall.

When he turned his sister finally reacted. "No! It'll come back! It'll come back!" She cried with absolut terror in her wide eyes.

Solvan held her until the outburst passed, but despite the reaction there still wasn't conciouss thought in those frightened eyes. The priest held out the aquila, it's warmness the only remaining evidence of the terrible monster they have fought, and put the chain around Allana's neck.

"That will protect you girl. Don't worry, it won't get you again." Solvan whispered in a broken voice. "I'll make sure of it."

The second time he turned to leave his sister was at peace, eyes closed, holding the aquila upon her chest with white knuckled hands.

He left without a clear idea of where he was headed. A week later his sister would burn at his hand.

--------------

He woke up with a start as he was being carried in a stretcher by medicae personel. The sound of gunfire still could be heard but growing ever dimmer.

"Father you should lay down until we are safely back on the ship." One of them said as he laid a hand on the priest shoulder.

"What happened? Why do I have to be evacuated?" He quickly confirmed that all his limbs were still attached and appart from the wound done by Haarlock's power weapon all seemed to be in order.

The medicaes looked at each other doubtfully before replying. "You were exposed to an unkown weapon and... Well, see for yourself." He passed a reflective metal tray to Solvan and he saw his own face about ten years older.

The bishop remained silent for a minute or so and the medicaes were sure the point have been made.

"Ok, and?" Solvan asked exasperated while tossing the tray away.

"I'm sorry?" the madicae asked at a loss.

"I'm older, big deal. I was old to begin with. Now give me a good reason why I have to be evacuated or put me down this instant." The medicaes seemed doubtful, they clearly had very specific orders to carry him back to the ship. "If you two don't put me down I will make sure you have the rest of your hopefully long lives to be sorry."

He was finally allowed to get down of the stretcher. He turned to a third soldier who was carrying his Warhammer. One look from the priest was enough for the man to hand it over. He held it confirming no damage had been done to it and also that he could wield it comfortably still.

"Young people these days, no bloody respect." He grumbled as he made his way towards the sounds of battle.

[Azazeal849]

"Oh yes." the skeleton whispered, raising a silver hand. "I will sift through your mind with some interest, mortal. And with somewhat more finesse than that primitive Strelilov."

Kally's stomach lurched, and her vision swam. She felt herself falling sideways, and her vision blacked out. The Prophet stood with its skeletal arm extended towards Kally, silver fingers hooked into a claw. The only flicker of movement from the robotic nightmare was the cold fire dancing in its emerald eyes.

The Major turned from the xenos and reflexively grabbed out to arrest Kally’s boneless slump, which after their ordeal in Rakosu took more effort than he would ever admit.

“Kally?” Crenshaw queried as he reached to cradle her head with his manacled hands. She was cold and unresponsive, and the only outward hint of life was her shallow breaths on his skin as he checked for a pulse. “Kally!”

“Agent Sonder was concerned about your survival while you were unconscious too.” Schafer observed.

“Not a likely story, creature.” Crenshaw snarled back through clenched teeth as he favored the replicant with a murderously askance glare. “Better luck next lie.”

“What would the Masters gain by lying to a dead man?” Schafer countered with a raised brow as he pointed to Kally. “She’s much more sympathetic than any blank has the right to be. While you may be the most undeserving recipient of her attention, she has cared about much more unlikely individuals.”

The replicant dismissively waved his hand.

“Of course it’ll all be irrelevant once the inquiry is finished. Sonder is commendably resilient, and Schafer respected her for that much, but even a month of Inquisitorial torture is nothing compared to this. She will break again, and sooner rather than later.”

Crenshaw frowned when he looked down at Kally and saw her deathly pale face twitch, lost as she was in an impossible nightmare. Whatever the unfathomable xenos machination happening inside her head, he recognized a desperate fight when he saw one. Crenshaw grunted and eased Kally’s deadweight down as his strength started to fail him. The Major’s gaze shifted from her to the shackles around his wrists, as his hands curled reflexively to test their weight.

One blow to the head, hard and fast before Schafer can intervene. Deprive the xenos of another blacksoul - deny them whatever they seek. Crenshaw’s frown deepened as he hesitated and glanced back towards Kally’s defenseless form. We are all dead even if she survives the interrogation! She would most likely not feel it.

“I know what you're thinking.” the replicant called from beyond the void shield, lowering the hand he’d pointed towards the generator. "Don't. You have no idea what the information in her head means for the fate of both our species."

He holstered his laspistol, his expression sternly neutral.

"Of course you don't believe me. But you won't kill her regardless. You care too much about her."

Crenshaw bristled at the disgustingly guileless expression Schafer wore. He remembered Machairi's words to him back at the AAT complex, when he had goaded her about what being a blank made him. You’re human, and everything that implies.

“Damn you.” Crenshaw loathingly muttered to himself as he defiantly glowered at the xenos. With nothing else to contribute, and refusing to remain a spectator, Crenshaw leaned over Kally and began to murmur unheard encouragement to her.

+ + + + + +

Kally came to on the floor of the cell, feeling exhausted and sweating all over. She started to push herself back up. Crenshaw wordlessly assisted her as best he could while keenly regarding their captors.

"What is wrong?" the silver skeleton was asking Schafer. Its tone was as flat and soulless as ever, but its witch-fire eyes were blazing.

Schafer had a battered old hand-vox to his ear, and was barking orders and threats into it. "Unidentified dropships have just landed and are deploying troops outside all three main entrances." he reported, before cursing. "What the feth happened to Oswin's perimeter alarms?"

“Having some technical issues with your defenses?” Crenshaw managed a darkly humored chuckle. “We can commiserate.”

Schafer ignored him, swearing again as he swept out of sight.

“Kally,” Crenshaw rasped as the xenos disappeared. The Major intently scanned her over for a moment, “Are you functional?”

“Just about.” She groaned. “I think I was able to keep it from. . .from what it wanted.”

“Good.” The Major slowly nodded before turned his head towards the other Telepathica blanks. Crenshaw’s lingering eyes flicked from Kally to assess their conditions. “Bayless, Maldonado, what are your statuses?”

“Feeling like hammered shit, sir, but alive.” The pale and black-eyed blank with the vividly red hair answered. He looked down the row with an uncertain grimace. “Not so sure that that’s a positive right now.”

“I'm fine.” The tanned and bald AAT soldier next to Crenshaw seethed through a split lip. He glared viperously at Kally and Crenshaw. “Nice to know you care about us almost as much as your Inquisitorial piece of-”

“Enough.” Crenshaw growled as he leaned forward and intensely stared down his defiant subordinate, whose gaze broke as he flinched back. The Major kept a hard eye on his would-be challenger as he spoke. “We have to be focused and ready for whatever happens next.”

“I’d like to think that’s the cavalry coming for us…but, well,” Bayless paused and shot a knowing look towards the others, “we all know how our luck goes.”

“Agent Sonder has some involved friends.” Crenshaw mildly noted as he glanced at Kally. The Major’s tense gaze pointedly flicked up to her hairline. He mouthed not a word as he met the other blank’s eyes again.

+ + + + + +

Gavin locked eyes with Crenshaw through the barrier, swallowed, and raised his hand. The green curtain imploded with a crack, and the manacles around the blanks' wrists and ankles fell away. Without the void shield Gavin wretched and reeled away from the quartet of unlimited Pariahs. It was only Sapphira’s firmly supporting grip on the psyker that kept him upright as he backed against the entrance wall.

“You’ve done well today, Gavin.” Sapphira reassured him, gently patting his arm even as she holstered her revolver. The Sister spared the dazed young pskyer a quick and assessing look as she gestured for one of Klimment's mercenaries to mind him. “Stay here while I check on the others.”

“We’re fine.” one of the AAT guards coughed at Sapphira as she ran forward to help. The Sister briefly staggered as she neared the blanks, and her hint of a relieved smile contorted into more of a grimace as she neared them.

“I’ll determine that.” Sapphira countered, more thornily than usual when challenged by uncooperative patients.

"Get after Schafer." Crenshaw growled as Kally hauled him to his feet. "That silver prophet cannot hide among normal citizens, but he can."

“What?” Sapphira snapped as she stopped and fixed Crenshaw with a hard glare. After a moment a flicker of suspicion crossed the Sister’s face as she wheeled on Kally, who met her gaze levelly. “What does he mean by that?”

“Schafer died on Venatora.” Kally said bluntly. “I don't know when or how, but he's a gakking replicant - has been for months.”

For a moment Sapphira merely stared at Kally, her scarred features twitching slightly as she processed the revelation. The Sister’s face settled into a calm and terrible resolve as her eyes darkened and narrowed, predatorily. Sapphira sharply turned on her heels and stalked out of the chamber, unlimbering her shotgun as she stormed into the tunnels.

“Oh hell.” muttered Kally. “She's going to go do something stupid.”

“Do what you need to do.” Crenshaw rasped as he registered the note of weary resignation in Kally’s voice. The Major extricated his hands from hers with a light squeeze. His brow furrowed in consideration before he merely nodded firmly and stepped away.

“More stupid than usual for you lot?” sneered Vincent, making Kally sigh as she took an autogun from a nearby table and checked the mechanism. “What makes you think that?”

“She didn't check me or Crenshaw for injuries.” Kally responded, shaking her head.

"Before you go, take this." Glabrio offered. He reached for one of his pistol holsters, and pulled a pair of spare magazines from his webbing, then held it out in offering. "I can't let you go unarmed. I expect that back."

“Thanks.” She grabbebd the pistol holster and quickly belted it around her waist, and clipped the two magazines into the pouches built into the holster. “Get Crenshaw and the others out. I'll go fetch Sapphira.”

Kally turned and ran into the tunnels, ignoring Gavin’s pained and panicked gasps as she passed, listening to the sound of combat ahead.

“Don't get yourself killed Kally girl!” Vincent shouted after her. “We still need to talk!”

Get in line. The Major thought as he watched Kally dart out, only turning away once the woman disappeared from sight. Crenshaw irritably clenched his teeth as Bayless and Maldonado shifted their gazes from the exit and regarded him with comprehending looks.

+ + + + + +

Sapphira was shouting something in Obrantu. It might have been a litany of hatred, or wrath. Kally wasn't sure. The trail of bodies suggested wrath. But she was making a lot of noise. Kally was barefoot, un-armoured and armed with a crappy, locally produced autogun that felt like it might fall apart, so she was being as quiet as she could manage.

She heard movement to her right. Three people. Running, heavy equipment load. Sapphira, by the sounds coming from up the low tunnel, was already engaged in a firefight with several indigens. Kally couldn't shout a warning without alerting the flankers, and didn't have a comm bead.

She flattened against a wall as Sapphira started firing at some target ahead. The three people, indigens, one older man, a teenager, and a woman, dashed out of the junction and turned towards Sapphira's location.

Kally stepped behind them, braced, and fired. The autogun kicked in her hand with surprising recoil, nearly tearing itself out of her hands as bullets tore into the teen, spraying blood in a wide fan. After the first burst the gun jammed, the mechanism fouling. The other two indigens turned, weapons rising to fire. Kally threw the useless rifle at the woman, and she stumbled back in shock as the weapon tangled with her own as Kally snapped the pistol Glabrio had leant her into her hand and fired, just as the veteran soldier pulled his own weapon round to fire. Kally fired twice, and both shots slammed into the womans torso with bright puffs of atomised blood. The veteran returned fire, spraying shots indiscriminately through his friend. Kally yelled as a hard round cut through her side, reopening the wound there in a sudden wash of blood, and smacked into the weapon she had been leant, snapping it out of her fingers, the remaining fire ricocheting down the corridor in a hail of lead.. She lurched forward over the ribboned corpse of the indigen between them, throwing herself at the veteran indigen and wrestling his gun away as she bore them both to the floor. He screamed in horror from the sudden full contact with a un-collared blank and kicked her off as she tried to get her hands around his neck, snatching up a knife from his webbing and lunging for her. Kally caught the two handed blow as she was rising, and it knocked her to the floor again as she struggled to keep the blade away from her neck. The veteran piled onto her, using his full weight to drive the knife down as Kally strained against him. All the time he was whispering something in Obrantu, his augmented eyes wild.

The knife edged closer to her neck as her strength failed. She was weak with exhaustion and injury, and this man was a seasoned veteran with all his strength.

“I don't. . . .I don't understand! I don't gakking understand!” she shouted back, as he kept hissing his Obrantu nonsense. The knife inched to her neck. A red bead of blood dribbled towards her chest as she began to panic, as the knife pricked her skin. “I don't understand what you're saying!”

There was a bang, close. The Indigen's eyes glazed, and strength left him as Kally felt warm blood wash over her chest. She pushed the corpse away with a grunt, looking up to see Sapphira standing over her, shotgun smoking.

“He was calling you a soulless monster and an Imperial whore.” Sapphira translated as she offered a hand and Kally took it, letting herself be pulled to her feet. She felt a wave of dizziness wash over her, and for a second the world tipped in its side, then it passed. How much blood had she lost?

“Thanks.” Kally looked at Sapphira. Kally guessed she was injured herself, from her ragged breathing, and battered armour. “You're going after Schafer.”

“Thanks to you, too.” Sapphira said, glancing at the dead flankers, and then nodded. “I will purge the abomination from the face of the galaxy. It will suffer for its deceptions.” She looked at Kally's midsection, and smiled, not something Kally expected to see. “You're injured. Here.”

Sapphira knelt down and peeled back the blood-soaked prisoner's clothes and the dressing Schafer had applied. She worked quickly, washing the wound clean and filling it with synth-flesh.

“Let me work with you on this.” Kally stepped away from Sapphira once she was done, bending to pick up the veteran's assault rifle, and Glabrio's pistol. “You'll need all the firepower you can get. And I've got my own score to settle with that frakker.”

“No.” Sapphira shook her head. She demonstratively tapped the exterminator on her shotgun. “You're needed elsewhere. Marcus and Kelly are pinned down not far from here." The Sister pressed a pair of frag grenades into Kally's hands and pointed her down a corridor. "Get them out of trouble, and meet up with me. I'll either immolate the Replicant or keep it pinned until we can bring it down with overwhelming firepower. Consider that an order.”

“Don't do anything stupid! I'll be right back with help!” Kally shouted over her shoulder as she sprinted towards another firefight, ignoring the pain from her side.

"No." Sapphira said under her breath as she looked away, ignoring the ache in her chest that wasn't physical, but spiritual. It drowned out every wound she had suffered so far. “This is something I need to do alone. This is my penance for harbouring the alien.”

Sapphira set her shoulders and reloaded her shotgun. Without hesitation she activated the exterminator's pilot light. By my death He shall know me. She vowed before breaking into a run.

+ + + + + +

Sapphira slowed down as she saw three bodies in black carapace slumped in the corridor ahead of her. A spent lasgun cell and a disc-shaped object lay on the floor between them. It wasn't an Imperial device, but it looked like some sort of grenade, with the perforated casing of a flash-bang.

The walls were spattered with blood. The lumoglobe embedded in the cave roof was flickering, spots of red discolouring the white bulb.

The tunnel ahead widened into a natural cavern that had been excavated to widen it further. The broad chamber was lit by standing lamps, and stacked with metal and wood crates full of weapons. Sapphira recognised lasguns and rugged indigen autos crammed alongside plastic explosives, heavy stubbers and several shoulder-fire weapons that were definitely not human in origin. As soon as she stepped through the crooked opening she saw two more of Klimment's men, this time with ragged slashes in the necks of their undersuits.

As Sapphira checked her corners, pivoted back and began to crab cautiously around the edge of the room, another one of the disc-shaped objects came skittering across the floor from her right.

The room was packed with flammable material, and the white-hot blind grenade would surely set it off. In that brief moment, Sapphira was certain that Schafer had just killed them both. And why not - he can come back.

She didn't even have time to curse the replicant's plan as the grenade detonated, but instead of the shrieking flash of magnesium there was a dazzling strobe that blinded her even through her closed eyelids, accompanied by a klaxon howl loud enough to physically unbalance her.

She was still reeling blindly for balance when something smacked hard against the barrel of her shotgun, pushing it down and to the left. She sensed rather than saw Schafer turn the momentum of the strike into a spin, bringing a blade slicing backhand towards her neck. Instincts hard-wired by Sororitas training made her release the shotgun's grip and bring her armoured forearm up to intercept the blow. She felt something jar hard against her arm, followed by a red-hot knife of pain as the blade sheared through her armaplas vambrace and gashed her arm to the bone.

A reverse kick hammered her in the chest, and her back met hard stone as she fell heavily against the wall. Her vision was still swimming, but she saw green as the blur in front of her resolved into a familiar face, its eyes crackling with jade lightning.

You know that lone wolves die alone, sister. Her ears were still deaf with white noise, but she saw Schafer's lips move as he punched the basket hilt of his sword into her face. The electrostatic generator discharged with a flash that shook through her nerves like raw voltage, causing her to drop her shotgun. Blind once again, she slumped to the floor.

She felt the shotgun's grip under her hand.

Closing her numb fingers around it, she swung it up, and blindly pulled the trigger. A sound that might have been a scream made it through the high-pitched ring filling her ears. When the sparking lights cleared from her vision, she found herself alone except for the bloody remnants of a severed arm, the hand still gripping Schafer's sword. The light sparkled off an intricate tracery of hexagrams lacing the blade - it was the same sword she had seen wielded at the AAT base, the one that had killed Aleks before its owner had burned the PDF with their own flame-tank while Sapphira watched helplessly from the turret.

"Schafer always respected you, sister." a hazy voice admitted from somewhere amongst the maze of crates. Schafer gritted his teeth, reloading his laspistol one-handed as a green glow played over the ragged stump of his shoulder, stemming the blood flow and beginning to re-knit the monstrous wound.

Sapphira saw a glimmer of movement, and fired her now-level shotgun. The shot tore the corner of an ammunition crate into splinters, spilling belts of fat heavy stubber cartridges across the floor. Schafer ducked back only just in time.

"Clement did too." the replicant added. He was speaking forcefully, although it might have been anger or simply that he had been deafened himself by the point-blank shotgun blast. "Actually, that's not the whole truth, is it?"

+ + + + + +

Kally heard firing ahead, the snap of autoguns and the sharper crack of a lasrifle. She slid to halt at a corner and ducked low, priming one of Sapphira's loaned grenades. She looked round the corner and spotted a three man fireteam, two laying autogun fire down a corridor, alternating between the two in long ragged bursts, while a third readied a grenade not dissimilar to her own. She hefted the weight of the grenade experimentally before throwing it high, hard, and fast. It cracked into the back of one of the indigens' heads, drawing a sharp cry of pain and surprise, before bouncing right into the middle of the three of them. Kally ducked back round her corner, and the corridor shook with the blast, and a secondary explosion that blended into the first. Peering out again, Kally allowed herself a wicked smile. All the hostiles had been eliminated with extreme prejudice. She doubted they were a threat to anyone splattered across the walls.

“Clear!” she shouted, and stepped out of cover, and started walking towards Marc's position. The two Black siblings both stuck their heads above cover at the same time, both looking bewildered, which, despite everything, was so comical it made her laugh. “You two good?”

"Kally?" Marc gaped. He was bleeding from somewhere underneath his hairline, the blood caking his eyebrow. Kelly, on the other hand, raised her autopistol.

"Stay there." she said firmly. She pulled up an auspex strapped to her left forearm, steadying her weapon hand over the raised arm as she glanced at the screen. A moment later, she visibly sagged as she holstered the gun and motioned for someone behind her to do the same. A squad of men in black carapace edged warily out of cover behind the Blacks, one of them running forward to check a comrade who lay motionless on the floor.

To Kally's slight surprise, Kelly ran forward and enveloped her in a tight hug. Kally thought she felt the younger woman flinch as they touched, but only slightly.

"I'm sorry." Kelly told her earnestly. "Had to be sure you weren't a replicant." She looked down uncertainly at the blood sheeted across the front of Kally's robe. "You okay?"

“I'm good.” the blank smiled. “Most of this isn't mine.”

"Frakking hell." Marc said in relief, through audibly gritted teeth. He hadn't moved from behind the splintered shoulder of rock.

Kally edged round the rubble and saw that Marc's carapace armour had seen better days. His helmet - now lying on the ground beside him - had taken a direct hit, dented inward above the cracked visor.

"Don't worry, it looks worse than it is." he reassured Kally as he managed to drag himself upright and follow his sister in pulling her into a hug. "Just hurts like frak and I can't see straight. How did you get out?"

"Aye! And where are the others?" Kelly added. She looked back briefly to order the black-clad soldiers onward. They stormed forward down the arterial corridor, lasgun butts tight against their shoulders.

“I got split up from them, there's a chamber in that direction. I went after Sapphira and got separated from the others.”

Marc rubbed the back of his neck, steadying himself against the shoulder of rock as he detached the vox bead from his damaged helmet. "Alpha team, Marc. We've found Kally." he reported. "No ma'am, she's fighting fit. Literally." He glanced up, grinning through the blood. "Understood."

"The indigens are on the run." Kelly explained, lowering the hand she had cupped around her own vox bead. "We can carry on or fall back to the landers, your call."

They all turned at a sudden scream from deeper in the complex.

“Sapphira.” Kally breathed.

"Go!" Marc urged, passing his vox bead to his sister. She clipped it to the shoulder of her flak vest and unhooked her own vox bead to give it to Kally. "This area's been cleared, I'll be fine until Vince's group show up."

Kelly nodded, reloading her pistol as Marc slumped back against the dry granite wall of the cave.

"Stick close to Kally." he advised.

"I know what to do." Kelly replied, a little sharply. Together, she and Kally broke into a run down the smaller tunnel, towards the chamber the scream had come from.

"All teams, Kelly." Kelly voxed, cocking her head towards Marc's microphone as she ran. "Sapphira's in trouble somewhere around hub 2, Kally and me are en route. Marc's hurt but not bad. Send someone to pick him up from tunnel 6."

[dakkagor]

Kelly slowed as she spotted the three dead soldiers outside the armoury, and pulled out her automag to adopt a two-handed Weaver stance. The sounds of Sapphira in full combat had ceased, or else were being drowned out by the gunfire still echoing from the deeper chambers.

She nodded silently to Kally. You lead, I'll follow. Kally returned the nod and stepped silently into the room.

“I can hear you, Agents. You're not as quiet as you think.”

Kally stepped out in the central space of the armoury, and paused. Sapphira was injured, and held by Schafer as a human shield. He was pressing his ornate sabre against her neck.

“Your friends aren't the master's prey today, Sonder. Drop the weapon, and I won't kill Sapphira.”

Kally's eyes flicked around the room. She caught a glimpse of Kelly slipping between crates of ammunition, and saw the powersword sitting on the floor; an exact replica, or perhaps the original, of the one in Schafer's hand. Nearby, a severed arm lay in a pool of blood.

Time. I need time.

She flicked the pistol up to underneath her own jaw, and disengaged the safety.

“Let Sapphira go, or I blow my brains out.”

Schafer's eyes narrowed, as the replicant weighed its objectives. He needed Kally alive, and intact. Could they replicate Blanks? Would the replication process save the information trapped in her skull? Kally was betting it couldn't.

“You...” Schafer began.

She jammed the pistol into her own jaw, hard. “Don't even frakking dare say I won't. I've been through literal hell, and I am on the frakking edge. I would happily blow my gakking head off to frak with your master's plans.”

"You don't know who and what you'd be damning!" the replicant spat at her, with a perfect facsimile of Schafer's anger. Abruptly, his eyes cleared. “Drop the pistol, come quietly, and I will let her go. You have my word.”

His eyes didn't waver. Kally dropped to her knees, and put the pistol on the floor, on her left side. The sabre was on her right. She could reach either instantly. She didn't look at the sword. She willed it not to exist, and fixed her gaze on Schafer. Kelly must still be in the room. Was she still circling round? Take the shot, she willed.

“Come and get it over with.”

Schafer pulled up the sword, and pushed Sapphira forwards with savage force. As she stumbled, Schafer cracked her over the back of the skull with the shock guard of the sabre, dropping her. Kally grimaced, but couldn't fault the practicality of it.

With three quick strides, Schafer was behind her.

She lunged, her right hand wrapping around the sabre. She scrambled on the floor and pulled it round as Schafer snarled in frustration, his own copy of the blade swiping down. It clashed with the original as Kally rose to her feet.

“You're stubborn, agent Sonder - I'll give you that.” He leaned into the attack, forcing Kally back. “But you're also injured, exhausted and scared.” He loomed over her, his eyes flaring green as they bored into her. “You will submit to us.”

“Not. Frakking. Likely.” She grunted as she forced him back, then stepped away. “And you're outnumbered.”

Schafer stepped after Kally, serpent fast. The blade lashed out three times, each blow aimed to inflict a debilitating wound. Kally met each with a solid block, but she could feel her strength fading.

“Kelly is a good shot, but she won't risk shooting into a melee.” Schafer responded. A smile tugged at his lips, turned into a grimace by the effort of the fight. “Not when her autopistol might kill you but is only going to slow me down, as you well know." He pressed forward, alternating between trying to slip past Kally's guard and trying to batter through it. "And I know you're terrible with a blade. I can safely wear you down, deal with the Black siblings, and then drag you to the masters, kicking and screaming if necessary. You will submit to us, for the purpose you were made for.”

Kally yelled and swung high and fast, a wild attack aimed at Schafer's head. He stepped back and ducked low, driving the point of the sabre at Kally's exposed stomach. She just twisted aside and nearly unbalanced, bringing her sabre down to bat the attack away. She followed with a series of brutal hacks at Schafer until the final blow caught, and the two swords locked together.

“I will never submit! I'll die first, you Xenos freak!”

The punch to her stomach came out of nowhere, driving the air from her lungs and opening up her wounds. Kally retched and stumbled back, slamming into the lumpy rock of the cavern wall and leaving a wet red streak as she slumped down it.

“I don't need to be an interrogator to know you're lying." Schafer hung back, assessing that the damage he had done wasn't fatal. "To yourself, mainly. If you wanted to die, you would have shot yourself just now and ruined all our plans.”

Kally staggered back to her feet. She raised her sword into a guard position again, edging further back along the wall and away from the cover of the crates.

Schafer thrusted with the copied sword, aiming for Kally's right shoulder, easily gliding past her defence. Kally stepped round and caught the blade in her left hand, screaming in pain as the energised blade sheared through fingers and bone. At the same time, with his blade entangled, Kally swung her own sword in a flat high cut. The fine lathe blade easily parted skin, flesh and spine, and Schafer's head rolled away on the floor, a look of shock etched on its face. For a second she stared at the bloody stump as it spurted blood, the body staggering as if surprised, then with a yell she brought her own sword down in an axe-like chop, carving into the still standing body with enough force to split the torso open in a spray of gore. Finally, the body fell backwards, and Kally stepped away cradling her mangled hand as she let her blade fell to the floor.

“Now! Gakking now Kelly!”

Kelly darted out of cover, holding a bulky flamer she had spent the last few seconds readying. Schafer's body lay next to the wall - safely away from the ammunition crates, as Kally had intended. Kelly triggered the indigen weapon and washed the flames over Schafer's mangled body. For a second a green flame flickered in the orange promethium glow, but it quickly faded as Kelly poured on the heat, rendering the entire body to blackened ash. Thick black smoke fouled the air, creeping across the chamber ceiling.

“Is it dead?” Kelly asked, walking over with the pilot light still dancing around the muzzle of her lowered flamethrower. Across the room, Sapphira was shaking her head and rising to her feet.

“I frakking well hope so.” muttered Kally, staring at her left hand, which was scorched and sliced to the bone. “I don't think I have another fight like that in me.”

(PaintSerf text here)

A sizzle of static made the women turn to look at Schafer's disembodied head. Grotesquely, it was still blinking, and the mouth was trying to form words as green static sputtered around its severed neck. Kelly looked at Sapphira, read something in the hospitaller's eyes, and silently passed her the flamethrower.

"For the Emperor, Sapphira?" the young verispex asked as the weapon roared out one final jet of molten flame.

"Always." Sapphira answered, in a strained but level voice. "And for Arval, and for Javid, and for me."